As a statewide petition drive to cap interest rates on payday lenders begins, there’s a chance that South Dakota could witness a level of hardball politics previously unseen by the state’s voters.

Faced with a similar petition drive in Missouri in 2012, the industry fought back ferociously after suffering defeats at the ballot box in Arizona, Ohio and Montana. Already, the industry here is adopting similar tactics that were successful in Missouri at keeping the issue off the ballot.

In court, the industry has challenged the attorney general’s description of the ballot measure, arguing it is inadequate, which it also did in Missouri. That challenge currently resides in the South Dakota Supreme Court.

More recently, a new group with an almost identical name to the one promoting the interest rate cap – South Dakotans for Responsible Lending – filed paperwork for its own petition. The new group, South Dakotans for Fair Lending, is proposing a petition that would cap interest rates at 18 percent – as opposed to the 36 percent cap proposed by South Dakotans for Responsible Lending. But lenders could charge more than 18 percent if borrowers sign a contract agreeing to higher terms, a caveat which would allow the industry to operate as it does now, say payday lending foes.

In Missouri, the industry also started a competing petition group with a similar name. It promoted a 14 percent cap, but a cap that could also be exceeded by written contract.

“These tactics of competing petitions to confuse voters is definitely something that happened in Missouri,” said Diane Standaert, the director of state policy for the Center for Responsible Lending.

For the industry, the stakes are high. Since 2005, it has been losing ground where it can legally make high-interest loans, Standaert said. No state has legalized payday lenders since then, and other states have instituted usury limits either by the ballot box or legislatively.

If the ballot drive here continues to unfold the way it did in Missouri, it could usher in a level of intensity not seen in a statewide ballot initiative. Molly Fleming, an activist who worked on the Missouri campaign, said the opponents of the measure hired people to follow petition circulators. The “blockers,” as they were called, would scream at people not to sign the petitions.

“They hired the largest, most intimidating men they could find,” said Fleming, who is a senior consultant with the PICO National Network, a progressive, faith-based community organization.

The decoy petition drive sponsored by the industry also hindered efforts to get enough signatures. Some people who thought they signed the petition for the 36 percent cap had actually signed the industry petition.

“It was very distracting,” Fleming said. “It was very annoying.”

In another instance, about 5,500 signatures were stolen from the car of a circulator in the final days of the petition drive in Springfield. It was distressing, Fleming said, because Missouri has rules that stipulate that a certain number of signatures must be collected from the state’s congressional districts. Volunteers had to flood into southwestern Missouri in the final week to ensure they had enough signatures in that district.

Ultimately, the backers of the cap managed to collect about 180,000 signatures, double what they needed to qualify for the ballot. But because they were 270 signatures short of the percentage they needed in St. Louis, the issue did not make the ballot.

Steve Hildebrand, one of the organizers of the South Dakota petition drive, said his group is preparing to face similar tactics as it begins gathering signatures. The attorney general’s office has 60 days to write a description of the ballot measure sponsored by the payday loan industry. After that, the two groups, he suspects, will be competing for signatures.

The group needs 13,871 signatures by Nov. 8 to qualify for the 2016 ballot.

“They’ll come to public locations and stand next to us,” Hildebrand said. “This is what we expect.”